


The Dumbledore Defense

by Silberias



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, No Ship, just hermione being a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 06:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16362221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: In a world where Snape magically lived, what legal defense would he employ when they inevitably put him on trial? No shipping, just fluffy legalese sort of thing!





	The Dumbledore Defense

The Dumbledore Defense, as it is popularly known, is actually a strategy known in legal circles as the Snape-Granger Defense. Three years after the defeat of Voldemort, Severus Snape was finally brought to trial for the murder of Albus Dumbledore. He was defended by the up-and-coming Hermione Granger, a fierce young lawyer who had been the primary assistant in several high profile defense cases. The defense strategy developed by Granger was ground breaking, brilliant if one were to go s step further than that.

Granger extensively plumbed the pensieve which Dumbledore had left, as well as testimony from many former professors and students. The crux of the defense was that Dumbledore had known he was dying and had decided to make his death a useful one rather than one which would cripple the resistance against Voldemort. Severus Snape came in here as a figure who could easily sink even deeper into his existing cover as well as one whose motives could easily be fabricated. Granger argued here that someone like Minerva McGonagall or Mad Eye Moody would not have been able to easily play the part of turn-coat. Because of prejudices against former Death Eaters, the case went on to state, Dumbledore handpicked the man who would aid him best.

This was an extreme legal gamble, as without a clear mind or without a few key witnesses the entire premise of the defense could crumble. But Witch Granger decided to gamble, because she speculated there was only a twenty five percent chance that the jury would actually see the truth of the matter. The other seventy five percent chance that they would remain prejudicial and blind was where the death penalty for Severus Snape lay.

After thirty four days of deliberations, an outrage according to Witch Granger, the jury returned with a Not Guilty verdict and Severus Snape was freed. It was with this "Dumbledore Defense," as the Daily Prophet coined it, that he did so and ever since many legal professionals have tried with varying degrees of success to emulate the exactitude with which Witch Granger conducted her case.

These days, the Dumbledore Defense is less remembered for the great man who was Albus Dumbledore and more for the childish epithet flung towards Witch Granger and Wizard Snape by the prosecution as the two collected their things after the ruling—"You can't always just say 'Dumbledore made me do it,' Snape!" If the defense were not, however, effective, it would not be included in this legal thesaurus.


End file.
